The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) is a multilateral treaty whereby states agree to: 1) prohibit the conscription into the military of children under the age of 18; 2) ensure that military recruits are no younger than 16; and 3) prevent recruits aged 16 or 17 from taking a direct part in hostilities. The treaty also forbids non-state armed groups from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose.

Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns.[3] In World War I, in Great Britain 250,000 boys under 18 managed to join the army.[4] In World War II, child soldiers fought throughout Europe, in the Warsaw Uprising,[5] in the Jewish resistance,[6] and in the Soviet Army.[7] After the Cold War ended, the number of armed conflicts grew and the use of children for military purposes surged, affecting as many as 300,000 children worldwide annually by the end of the 1990s.[8]

Progress towards ending the use of children for military purposes has been slow, partly because many national armed forces have relied on children to fill their ranks.[9][10][8] Initial efforts to limit the participation of children in armed conflict began with the adoption of the Additional Protocols to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, adopted in 1977 (Art. 77.2).[11] The new Protocols prohibited the military recruitment of children aged under 15 and their direct participation in hostilities, but continued to allow state armed forces and non-state armed groups to recruit children from age 15 and use them in warfare.[12] In addition, the Protocols did not prohibit belligerents from using children younger than 15 in hostilities when their participation was not "direct"; for example, as scouts, porters, informants, spies, message-carriers and in other support roles.

When the same limited standards were incorporated into the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1989, children's rights advocates were left frustrated, believing that a treaty establishing the fundamental rights of children ought to protect them from all forms of military involvement.[8] To achieve this, a small group of human rights campaigners and sympathetic governments began a global campaign for a new treaty, which was adopted in 2000 as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC).[8]

While the large majority of states negotiating the protocol were willing to end all military recruitment of children under the age of 18 (the so-called "straight-18" principle), a small number were opposed: Bangladesh, Cuba, Israel, South Korea, Kuwait, Pakistan, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). According to Jo Becker, a human rights advocate actively involved in the negotiations:

"Governments began a series of annual negotiations in Geneva, but by 1998, negotiations floundered as it became clear that governments that had long used under-eighteens in their national armed forces, notably the United States and United Kingdom, were not willing to support a new standard that conflicted with their national practice."[14]

While some of the states opposed to the change said nevertheless that they would not block it, the US insisted on its position, according to Becker.[8]

Instrumental in gathering high-level support for the treaty was a proposal by children's rights advocates for a major study on the effect of armed conflict on children.[13] The study was proposed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, commissioned by the UN General Assembly, and produced by Graça Machel in 1996: Impact of armed conflict on children.[15] The report was particularly concerned with the use of younger children as participants in armed conflict, presenting evidence that many thousands of children were being killed, maimed, and psychiatrically injured around the world every year. It also called for an end to the recruitment of children by all armed forces.[15]

With initial funding from the Canadian government, the Coalition organised a series of intergovernmental regional conferences; the African and Latin-American conferences strongly supported the straight-18 principle.[8] The European conference supported an end to the participation of children in armed conflict, but not their recruitment, due to opposition from Austria, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK, which were all recruiting children aged 16 or 17 into their own armed forces.[8] (As of 2017, all except Luxembourg were still doing so.)[9]

In the final negotiations, only five states still advocated against the straight-18 principle: Egypt, Kuwait, Singapore, the UK and, most trenchantly, the US.[16] The US, with British support, continued to insist that it would not support a treaty that prevented it from sending 17 year-olds into battle.[8][16] According to Becker, the US relented following an intervention from Secretary of StateMadeleine Albright, although the US and UK continued to insist on their right to recruit children from age 16 (UK) and 17 (US).[8]

This change allowed a compromise consensus between the negotiating parties, in which the new treaty would not prevent states from recruiting children into their armed forces from age 16 or 17, but would require that "all feasible measures" be taken to ensure that children did not participate "directly" in hostilities.

The OPAC treaty has been widely ratified. As of February 2018, 167 states had ratified or acceded to the treaty; a further 13 states had signed but not yet ratified it.[1]

In addition, following OPAC's adoption the number of states restricting enlistment to adults aged over 18 has increased substantially, according to Child Soldiers International: from 83 in 2001 to 126 in 2016, which is 71 percent of countries with armed forces.[9] These include several states where child recruitment had been routine, including Colombia and Sierra Leone.[8] Approximately 60 non-state armed groups have also entered agreements to stop or scale back their use of children.[17]

No state party may recruit any person who has yet to attain a minimum age specified by the state (in a binding declaration deposited with the UN on ratification), and in all cases the minimum age must not be lower than 16 years.

ensure prior to enlistment that child applicants are "fully informed" of the duties of military service, that their choice to enlist is "genuinely voluntary", and that their parents or legal guardians give their "informed consent"; and

"take all feasible measures" to ensure that child recruits do not take part directly in hostilities;

Non-state armed groups "should not, under any circumstances, recruit or use in hostilities" any child under the age of 18 (the legal force of this is uncertain, however[13][21][22]).

States parties must cooperate with each other in the implementation of the treaty and support financially and technically "in the rehabilitation and social reintegration" of persons who were recruited unlawfully as children.

Any state can leave the treaty at a a year's notice, but not if engaged in armed conflict at the time.

The treaty does not prevent states from operating military schools, which are common in many countries,[9] provided that these comply with the legal requirements governing education in the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The treaty allows states the option of raising their minimum enlistment age at any point and depositing an updated binding declaration to that effect with the United Nations; any state doing so is then bound by the revised minimum age and may not lower it.

The sentence "States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that members of their armed forces who have not attained the age of 18 years do not take a direct part in hostilities" was adapted from Article 77.2 of the Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, adopted in 1977, with an alteration from fifteen years to eighteen years and some other minor modifications. ("The Parties to the conflict shall take all feasible measures in order that children who have not attained the age of fifteen years do not take a direct part in hostilities and, in particular, they shall refrain from recruiting them into their armed forces.")

The ICRC commentary on Protocol I makes clear that it does not require a complete ban on the use of children in conflict. The ICRC had proposed that the Protocol require parties to "take all necessary measures" but final text uses the wording "take all feasible measures" which is not a total prohibition on their doing so. Furthermore, refraining from recruiting children under fifteen does not exclude children who volunteer for armed service. During the negotiations over the clause "take a part in hostilities," the word "direct" was added, opening up the possibility that child volunteers could be involved indirectly in hostilities, gathering and transmitting military information, helping in the transportation of arms and munitions, provision of supplies, etc.[23]

The Australian Defence Force Cadets follows the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict[24] but still accepts cadets between the ages of 13-18 (except staff) and sometimes brings them onto ADF bases.

As noted above, at the time of OPAC's negotiation, the UK joined the US in actively resisting the majority view of negotiating states that 18 should be the minimum age for all forms of military recruitment.[8] Then, as now, the UK permits its armed forces to enlist from age 16, and allows children to apply aged 15 years, 7 months.[25][26]

On ratification of the treaty, the UK's binding declaration stated its understanding that, while it would endeavour not to use child recruits in hostilities, the protocol "...would not exclude the deployment of members of its armed forces under the age of 18 to take a direct part in hostilities where: a) there is a genuine military need to deploy their unit or ship to an area in which hostilities are taking place; and b) by reason of the nature and urgency of the situation:- i) it is not practicable to withdraw such persons before deployment; or ii) to do so would undermine the operational effectiveness of their ship or unit, and thereby put at risk the successful completion of the military mission and/or the safety of other personnel."[27]

1.
Secretary-General of the United Nations
–
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General serves as the administrative officer of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations Secretariat, and of the Secretary-General in particular, is out by Chapter XV of the United Nations Charter. As of 2017, the Secretary-General is António Guterres, appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016, according to the UN website, their roles are further defined as diplomat and advocate, civil servant, and CEO. Nevertheless, this more abstract description has not prevented the office holders from speaking out, responsibilities of the Secretary-General are further outlined in Articles 98 through 100. They are also responsible for making a report to the General Assembly. According to Article 99, they may notify the Security Council on matters which in their opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace, other than these few guidelines, little else is dictated by the Charter. Interpretation of the Charter has varied between Secretaries-General, with some being more active than others. The Secretary-General is highly dependent upon the support of the states of the UN. The personal skills of the Secretary-General and their staff are crucial to their function, the central position of the UN headquarters in the international diplomatic network is also an important asset. The Secretary-General has the right to place any dispute on the agenda of the Security Council. However, they work mostly behind the scenes if the members of the council are unwilling to discuss a dispute. Most of their time is spent on good offices missions and mediation, sometimes at the request of deliberative organs of the UN and their function may be replaced or supplemented by mediation efforts by the major powers. UN peacekeeping missions are often linked to mediation. The recent improvement in relations between the permanent members of the Security Council has strengthened the role of the Secretary-General as the worlds most reputable intermediary, in the early 1960s, Soviet First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev led an effort to abolish the Secretary-General position. Khrushchev proposed to replace the Secretary-General with a three-person leading council, one member from the West, one from the Eastern Bloc and this idea failed because the neutral powers failed to back the Soviet proposal. Article 97 of the United Nations Charter determines that the Secretary-General is appointed by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council, as the recommendation must come from the Security Council, any of the five permanent members of the Council can veto a nomination. Most Secretaries-General are compromise candidates from middle powers and have little prior fame, unofficial qualifications for the job have been set by precedent in previous selections

2.
Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to store useful or important historical texts, the project officially began in November 24,2003 under the name Project Sourceberg. The name Wikisource was adopted later that year and it received its own domain name seven months later, the project has come under criticism for lack of reliability but it is also cited by organisations such as the National Archives and Records Administration. The project holds works that are either in the domain or freely licensed, professionally published works or historical source documents, not vanity products. Verification was initially made offline, or by trusting the reliability of digital libraries. Now works are supported by online scans via the ProofreadPage extension, some individual Wikisources, each representing a specific language, now only allow works backed up with scans. While the bulk of its collection are texts, Wikisource as a whole hosts other media, some Wikisources allow user-generated annotations, subject to the specific policies of the Wikisource in question. Wikisources early history included several changes of name and location, the original concept for Wikisource was as storage for useful or important historical texts. These texts were intended to support Wikipedia articles, by providing evidence and original source texts. The collection was focused on important historical and cultural material. The project was originally called Project Sourceberg during its planning stages, in 2001, there was a dispute on Wikipedia regarding the addition of primary source material, leading to edit wars over their inclusion or deletion. Project Sourceberg was suggested as a solution to this, perhaps Project Sourceberg can mainly work as an interface for easily linking from Wikipedia to a Project Gutenberg file, and as an interface for people to easily submit new work to PG. Wed want to complement Project Gutenberg--how, exactly, and Jimmy Wales adding like Larry, Im interested that we think it over to see what we can add to Project Gutenberg. It seems unlikely that primary sources should in general be editable by anyone -- I mean, Shakespeare is Shakespeare, unlike our commentary on his work, the project began its activity at ps. wikipedia. org. The contributors understood the PS subdomain to mean either primary sources or Project Sourceberg, however, this resulted in Project Sourceberg occupying the subdomain of the Pashto Wikipedia. A vote on the name changed it to Wikisource on December 6,2003. Despite the change in name, the project did not move to its permanent URL until July 23,2004, since Wikisource was initially called Project Sourceberg, its first logo was a picture of an iceberg

3.
Military use of children
–
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were against cultural morals. In World War I, in Great Britain 250,000 boys under 18 managed to join the army, in World War II, child soldiers fought throughout Europe, in the Warsaw Uprising, in the Jewish resistance, and in the Soviet Army. According to one study, children have been used militarily across the globe, Children are easy targets to recruit for military purposes because of their vulnerability to influence. Many are seized and recruited by force whereas others join to escape their reality, research shows that child soldiering prolongs the duration of civil wars, as it increases the strength of rebel organizations vis-a-vis the government. This reduction in both the calibre of infantry rifles and the mass of many items of equipment makes it easier for children to carry. However, children who are over the age of 15 but under the age of 18 are still able to take part in combat as soldiers. The United Nations Security Council convenes regularly to debate, receive reports, the most recent meeting was on 17 July 2008. The first resolution on the issue, Resolution 1261, was passed in 1999, in 2014, more than 17 cases were covered about children in armed conflict. Many children in different countries are involved in such illegal conflicts and these children are detained with no real evidence, or in massive sweeps. Some of them are captured with their families, or by the activity of one of their family members, lawyers and relatives are banded to the court. They can be detained without sufficient food, medical care, or under other inhumane conditions, some of these children live with physical and sexual torture. Refraining from recruiting children under fifteen does not exclude children who volunteer for armed service, non-state actors and guerrilla forces are forbidden from recruiting anyone under the age of 18 for any purpose. Opinion is currently divided over whether children should be prosecuted for committing war crimes, many child soldiers fought in the Sierra Leone Civil War. In its wake, the UN sanctioned the Special Court for Sierra Leone to try the participants for war crimes, if found guilty under US law such a crime carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. This was agreed as part of a bargain, which would see Khadr deported to Canada after one year to serve the remaining seven years there. In a letter to the U. S. Omar Khadr remained in Guantanamo Bay, Khadr was transferred to the Canadian prison system in September 2012, and was freed on bail by a judge in the province of Alberta in May 2015. He is appealing his American conviction as a war criminal, in March 2012 Thomas Lubanga Dyilo was convicted by the International Criminal Court for military use of children. P. W. Singer of the Brookings Institution estimated in January 2003 that child soldiers participate in three quarters of all the ongoing conflicts in the world

4.
Violent non-state actor
–
Violent non-state actors, also known as armed non-state actors, are non-state actors, i. e. The term has been used in papers published by the U. S. military. There are many reasons why violent non-state actors develop, in the United States there are fears that the gangs have gotten so out of control they may become violent non-state actors. Thomas, Kiser and Casebeer in 2005 asserted that VNSA play a prominent, often destabilizing role in nearly every humanitarian, phil Williams, in an overview article, states that violent non-state actors have become a pervasive challenge to nation-states in the 21st century. Williams argues that VNSAs develop out of state governance but also contribute to further undermining governance by the state. This causes the family, tribe, clan etc. to become the reference points for political action. According to Williams, globalization has not only, challenged individual state capacity to manage economic affairs, it has also provided facilitators and force multipliers for VNSAs. Transnational flows of arms, for example, are no longer under the surveillance of states. With the onset of globalization, development of social capital and alliances. However, humanitarian agencies too often fail to engage strategically with VNSAs, in their opinion further study is necessary to identify ways in which humanitarian agencies can develop productive dialogue with VNSAs. Modeling Violent Non-State Actors, A Summary of Concepts and Methods, Colorado, Institute for Information Technology Applications, United States Air Force Academy. Deterring Violent Non-State Actors in the New Millenium, archived from the original on March 6,2008. Briefing Paper, Talking to the side, Humanitarian engagement with armed non-state actors. Thomas, Troy S. Casebeer, William D, Violent Non-State Actors, Countering Dynamic Systems. Archived from the original on March 1,2009, shultz, Richard H. Farah, Douglas, Lochard, Itamara V. Armed Groups, A Tier-One Security Priority, USAF Institute for National Security Studies, USAF Academy. Thomas, Troy S. Kiser, Stephen D. Casebeer, zurich, International Relations and Security Network. Violent Non-State Actors in World Politics, thomas, Troy S. Kiser, Stephen D

5.
United Nations General Assembly
–
The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. The General Assembly is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. It has also established a number of subsidiary organs. It can also reconvene for special and emergency special sessions and its composition, functions, powers, voting, and procedures are set out in Chapter IV of the United Nations Charter. The first session was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, other questions are decided by a straightforward majority. Each member country has one vote, apart from approval of budgetary matters, including adoption of a scale of assessment, Assembly resolutions are not binding on the members. The Assembly may make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace, the one state, one vote power structure potentially allows states comprising just five percent of the world population to pass a resolution by a two-thirds vote. During the 1980s, the Assembly became a forum for the North-South dialogue and these issues came to the fore because of the phenomenal growth and changing makeup of the UN membership. In 1945, the UN had 51 members and it now has 193, of which more than two-thirds are developing countries. Because of their numbers, developing countries are able to determine the agenda of the Assembly, the character of its debates. For many developing countries, the UN is the source of much of their diplomatic influence, the Assembly can consider the matter immediately with a view to making recommendations to Members for collective measures to maintain or restore international peace and security. The first session of the UN General Assembly was convened on 10 January 1946 in the Methodist Central Hall in London, the next few annual sessions were held in different cities, the second session in New York, and the third session was in Paris. It moved to the permanent United Nations Headquarters in New York at the start of its seventh regular annual session, on 14 October 1952. In December 1988, in order to hear Yasser Arafat, the General Assembly organised its 29th session in the Palace of Nations, all 193 members states of the United Nations are members of the General Assembly. The agenda for each session is planned up to seven months in advance and this is refined into a provisional agenda 60 days before the opening of the session. Items on the agenda are numbered, the General Assembly votes on many resolutions brought forth by sponsoring states. These are generally statements symbolizing the sense of the community about an array of world issues. Most General Assembly resolutions are not enforceable as a legal or practical matter, the General Assembly has authority to make final decisions in some areas such as the United Nations budget

6.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
–
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Convention defines a child as any human being under the age of eighteen, Nations that ratify this convention are bound to it by international law. Compliance is monitored by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and their reports and the committees written views and concerns are available on the committees website. The UN General Assembly adopted the Convention and opened it for signature on 20 November 1989 and it came into force on 2 September 1990, after it was ratified by the required number of nations. Currently,196 countries are party to it, including member of the United Nations except the United States. Two optional protocols were adopted on 25 May 2000, the First Optional Protocol restricts the involvement of children in military conflicts, and the Second Optional Protocol prohibits the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Both protocols have been ratified by more than 160 states, a third optional protocol relating to communication of complaints was adopted in December 2011 and opened for signature on 28 February 2012. It came into effect on 14 April 2014, the Convention deals with the child-specific needs and rights. It requires that the nations that ratify this convention are bound to it by international law, ratifying states must act in the best interests of the child. The Convention obliges states to allow parents to exercise their parental responsibilities, the Convention forbids capital punishment for children. The European Court of Human Rights has referred to the Convention when interpreting the European Convention on Human Rights, global human rights standards were challenged at the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna when a number of governments raised serious objections to the idea of universal human rights. Some scholars link slavery and slavery-like practices for many child marriages, Child marriage as slavery is not directly addressed by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Currently 196 countries are parties to the treaty and this includes every member of the United Nations, plus the Cook Islands, Niue, the State of Palestine, and the Holy See. The United States has not ratified it, somalias domestic ratification finished in January 2015 and the instrument was deposited with the United Nations in October 2015. All successor states of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia made declarations of succession to the treaty, the convention does not apply in the territories of Akrotiri and Dhekelia, Gibraltar, Guernsey and Tokelau. Canada became a signatory to the Convention on 28 May 1990, Youth criminal laws in Canada underwent major changes resulting in the Youth Criminal Justice Act which went into effect on 1 April 2003. The Act specifically references Canadas different commitments under the Convention, the convention was influential in the administrative Law decision of Baker v Canada. India ratified UNCRC on 11 December 1992, agreeing in principles all articles except with certain reservations on issues relating to child labor

7.
United Nations General Assembly resolution
–
A United Nations General Assembly Resolution is voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly. General Assembly resolutions usually require a majority to pass. 1946 Resolution 1, Established the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy, for the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction, among other issues regarding nuclear technology. This resulted in the creation of the Nuremberg Principles, Resolution 181, The 1947 UNGA Partition resolution regarding the British Mandate of Palestine. 1948 Resolution 194, Recommends the Right of return for Palestinian refugees, Resolution 217, Universal Declaration of Human Rights Resolution 260, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. 1949 Resolution 273, Admits the State of Israel to membership in the United Nations and its armed forces continue their invasion of Korea and their large-scale attacks upon United Nations forces there. 1960 Resolution 1514, Declaration on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples, Resolution 1541, United Nations definition of what a colony is, and what self-determination is. Principles which should guide Members in determining whether or not an obligation exists to transmit the information called for under Article 73 e of the Charter,1961 Resolution 1631, Admission of Mauritania to membership in the United Nations. 1962 Resolution 1761, Recommended sanctions against South Africa in response to the policy of apartheid. 1963 Resolution 1962, One of the earliest resolutions governing Outer space, Resolution 1991, Amended the UN Charter, enlarging the Security Council to fifteen members. 1971 Resolution 2758, Expelled the Republic of China and replaced it with the Peoples Republic of China and it also recognized the PRC as the sole legal authority of China. 1972 Resolution 3010, Adopted to make the year 1975 International Womens Year,1974 Resolution 3275, Adopted 1975, International Womens Year, as a period of intensified action with regards to equal rights and recognition of women. 1975 Resolution 3379, Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination, Resolution 3520, Adopted the World Plan of Action and related resolutions from the International Womens Year Conference. 1978 Resolution 33/75, Urges the Security Council, especially its permanent members, to all necessary measures for insuring UN decisions on he maintenance of international peace. United States and Israel were the no vote. 1979 Resolution 34/37, Deplored Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara and urged to terminate it,1981 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 36/3, Admission of Belize to membership in the United Nations. 1989 Resolution 44/34, The UN Mercenary Convention 1991 Resolution 46/86,1993 Resolution 47/121, condemned ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Muslims by the Bosnian Serbs as genocide. Resolution 48/114, Emergency international assistance to refugees and displaced persons in Azerbaijan,2007 Resolution 61/295, Establishes the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

8.
World War I
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts in history, and paved the way for major political changes, including revolutions in many of the nations involved. The war drew in all the worlds great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances, the Allies versus the Central Powers of Germany and Austria-Hungary. These alliances were reorganised and expanded as more nations entered the war, Italy, Japan, the trigger for the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, by Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. This set off a crisis when Austria-Hungary delivered an ultimatum to the Kingdom of Serbia. Within weeks, the powers were at war and the conflict soon spread around the world. On 25 July Russia began mobilisation and on 28 July, the Austro-Hungarians declared war on Serbia, Germany presented an ultimatum to Russia to demobilise, and when this was refused, declared war on Russia on 1 August. Germany then invaded neutral Belgium and Luxembourg before moving towards France, after the German march on Paris was halted, what became known as the Western Front settled into a battle of attrition, with a trench line that changed little until 1917. On the Eastern Front, the Russian army was successful against the Austro-Hungarians, in November 1914, the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, opening fronts in the Caucasus, Mesopotamia and the Sinai. In 1915, Italy joined the Allies and Bulgaria joined the Central Powers, Romania joined the Allies in 1916, after a stunning German offensive along the Western Front in the spring of 1918, the Allies rallied and drove back the Germans in a series of successful offensives. By the end of the war or soon after, the German Empire, Russian Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, national borders were redrawn, with several independent nations restored or created, and Germanys colonies were parceled out among the victors. During the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, the Big Four imposed their terms in a series of treaties, the League of Nations was formed with the aim of preventing any repetition of such a conflict. This effort failed, and economic depression, renewed nationalism, weakened successor states, and feelings of humiliation eventually contributed to World War II. From the time of its start until the approach of World War II, at the time, it was also sometimes called the war to end war or the war to end all wars due to its then-unparalleled scale and devastation. In Canada, Macleans magazine in October 1914 wrote, Some wars name themselves, during the interwar period, the war was most often called the World War and the Great War in English-speaking countries. Will become the first world war in the sense of the word. These began in 1815, with the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria, when Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Soon after, in October 1873, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck negotiated the League of the Three Emperors between the monarchs of Austria-Hungary, Russia and Germany

9.
World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan

10.
Warsaw Uprising
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The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The uprising was timed to coincide with the Soviet Unions Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces. However, the Soviet advance stopped short, enabling the Germans to regroup and demolish the city while defeating the Polish resistance, the Uprising was the largest single military effort taken by any European resistance movement during World War II. The Uprising began on 1 August 1944, as part of a plan, Operation Tempest. The main Polish objectives were to drive the Germans from the city and help with the fight against Nazi Germany. Also, short-term causes included the threat of a German round-up of able-bodied Poles, initially, the Poles established control over most of central Warsaw, but the Soviets ignored Polish attempts to establish radio contact and did not advance beyond the city limits. Intense street fighting between the Germans and Poles continued, arthur Koestler called the Soviet attitude one of the major infamies of this war which will rank for the future historian on the same ethical level with Lidice. Winston Churchill pleaded with Stalin and Franklin D. Roosevelt to help Britains Polish allies, then, without Soviet air clearance, Churchill sent over 200 low-level supply drops by the Royal Air Force, the South African Air Force, and the Polish Air Force under British High Command. Later, after gaining Soviet air clearance, the U. S. Army Air Force sent one high-level mass airdrop as part of Operation Frantic, the Soviet Union refused to allow American bombers from Western Europe to land on Soviet airfields after dropping supplies to the Poles. Although the exact number of remains unknown, it is estimated that about 16,000 members of the Polish resistance were killed. In addition, between 150,000 and 200,000 Polish civilians died, mostly from mass executions, Jews being harboured by Poles were exposed by German house-to-house clearances and mass evictions of entire neighbourhoods. German casualties totalled over 8,000 soldiers killed and missing, during the urban combat approximately 25% of Warsaws buildings were destroyed. Following the surrender of Polish forces, German troops systematically levelled another 35% of the city block by block, by July 1944, Poland had been occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany for almost five years. The Polish Home Army, which was loyal to the Polish government-in-exile, had planned some form of insurrection against the occupiers. Germany was fighting a coalition of Allied powers, led by the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the initial plan of the Home Army was to link up with the invading forces of the Western Allies as they liberated Europe from the Nazis. However, in 1943 it became apparent that the Soviets, rather than the Western Allies, in this country, we have one point from which every evil emanates. If we didnt have Warsaw in the General Government, we wouldnt have four-fifths of the difficulties with which we must contend and it became obvious that the advancing Soviet Red Army might not come to Poland as an ally but rather only as the ally of an ally. The Soviets and the Poles distrusted each other, and Soviet partisans in Poland often clashed with Polish resistance increasingly united under the Home Armys front, afterwards, Stalin created the Rudenko Commission, whose goal was to blame the Germans for the war crime at all costs

11.
Soviet Army
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It had 2.4 million men under its service during the Cold War. At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and their experience of war gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut by two-thirds. The Tank Corps of the war period were converted to tank divisions. MRDs had three motorized rifle regiments and a regiment, for a total of ten motor rifle battalions and six tank battalions. The Land Forces Chief Command was created for the first time in March 1946, four years later it was disbanded, only to be formed again in 1955. In March 1964 the Chief Command was again disbanded but recreated in November 1967, the personnel strength of the Ground Forces was reduced from 9.8 million to 2.4 million. Elsewhere, they may have assisted the NKVD in suppressing resistance in Western Ukraine. Soviet troops, including the 39th Army, remained at Port Arthur, control was then handed over to the new Chinese communist government. Soviet Army forces on USSR territory were apportioned among military districts, there were 32 of them in 1945. Sixteen districts remained from the mid-1970s to the end of the USSR, yet, the greatest Soviet Army concentration was in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany, which suppressed the anti-Soviet Uprising of 1953 in East Germany. East European Groups of Forces were the Northern Group of Forces in Poland, and the Southern Group of Forces in Hungary, in 1958, Soviet troops were withdrawn from Romania. The Central Group of Forces in Czechoslovakia was established after Warsaw Pact intervention against the Prague Spring of 1968. In 1969, at the east end of the Soviet Union, the Sino-Soviet border conflict, prompted establishment of a 16th military district, in 1979, the Soviet Union entered Afghanistan, to support its Communist government, provoking a 10-year Afghan mujahideen guerrilla resistance. Throughout the Cold War, Western intelligence estimates calculated that the Soviet strength remained ca.2.8 million to ca.5.3 million men, by the middle of the 1980s the Ground Forces contained about 210 divisions. About three-quarters were motor rifle divisions and the tank divisions. There were also a number of artillery divisions, separate artillery brigades, engineer formations. However, only relatively few formations were fully war ready, three readiness categories, A, B, and V, after the first three letters of the Cyrillic alphabet, were in force. The Category A divisions were certified combat-ready and were fully equipped, B and V divisions were lower-readiness, 50–75% and 10–33% respectively

12.
Cold War
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The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there was no large-scale fighting directly between the two sides, although there were major regional wars, known as proxy wars, supported by the two sides. The Cold War split the temporary alliance against Nazi Germany, leaving the Soviet Union. The USSR was a Marxist–Leninist state ruled by its Communist Party and secret police, the Party controlled the press, the military, the economy and all organizations. In opposition stood the West, dominantly democratic and capitalist with a free press, a small neutral bloc arose with the Non-Aligned Movement, it sought good relations with both sides. The two superpowers never engaged directly in full-scale armed combat, but they were armed in preparation for a possible all-out nuclear world war. The first phase of the Cold War began in the first two years after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the Berlin Blockade was the first major crisis of the Cold War. With the victory of the communist side in the Chinese Civil War and the outbreak of the Korean War, the USSR and USA competed for influence in Latin America, and the decolonizing states of Africa and Asia. Meanwhile, the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was stopped by the Soviets, the expansion and escalation sparked more crises, such as the Suez Crisis, the Berlin Crisis of 1961, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. The USSR crushed the 1968 Prague Spring liberalization program in Czechoslovakia, détente collapsed at the end of the decade with the beginning of the Soviet–Afghan War in 1979. The early 1980s were another period of elevated tension, with the Soviet downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007, the United States increased diplomatic, military, and economic pressures on the Soviet Union, at a time when the communist state was already suffering from economic stagnation. In the mid-1980s, the new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced the reforms of perestroika and glasnost. Pressures for national independence grew stronger in Eastern Europe, especially Poland, Gorbachev meanwhile refused to use Soviet troops to bolster the faltering Warsaw Pact regimes as had occurred in the past. The result in 1989 was a wave of revolutions that peacefully overthrew all of the communist regimes of Central, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union itself lost control and was banned following an abortive coup attempt in August 1991. This in turn led to the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991. The United States remained as the only superpower. The Cold War and its events have left a significant legacy and it is often referred to in popular culture, especially in media featuring themes of espionage and the threat of nuclear warfare

13.
Military recruitment
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Military recruitment is recruitment for military positions, that is, the act of requesting people, usually male adults, to join a military voluntarily. Involuntary military recruitment is known as conscription, to facilitate this process, armed forces have established recruiting commands. Military recruitment can be considered part of science if analysed as part of military history. Acquiring large amounts of forces in a short period of time, especially voluntarily. Recent cross-cultural studies suggest that, throughout the world, the broad categories may be used to define recruitment appeals. They include war, economic motivation, education, family and friends, politics, prior to the outbreak of World War I, military recruitment in the US was conducted primarily by individual states. Upon entering the war, however, the government took an increased role. The increased emphasis on an effort was reflected in World War I recruitment methods. Peter A. Padilla and Mary Riege Laner define six basic appeals to these recruitment campaigns, patriotism, job/career/education, adventure/challenge, social status, travel, between 1915 and 1918, 42% of all army recruitment posters were themed primarily by patriotism. In the aftermath of World War II military recruitment shifted significantly, with no war calling men and women to duty, the United States refocused its recruitment efforts to present the military as a career option, and as a means of achieving a higher education. A majority - 55% - of all recruitment posters would serve this end, and though peacetime would not last, factors such as the move to an all-volunteer military would ultimately keep career-oriented recruitment efforts in place. The Defense Department turned to syndication as a recruiting aid from 1957-1960 with a filmed show, Country Style. On February 20,1970, the President’s Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force unanimously agreed that the United States would be best served by an all-volunteer military. In supporting this recommendation, the noted that recruitment efforts would have to be intensified. Much like the post-World War II era, these new campaigns put an emphasis on job opportunity. ”These new directives were to be combined with “an intensive recruiting effort. ”Finalized in mid-1973. In 1975 and 1976, military enlistments exceeded expectations, with over 365,000 men and women entering the military, indeed, recommendations made by the Presidents Commission continue to work in present-day recruitment efforts. Understanding the need for greater individual incentive, the US military has re-packaged the benefits of the GI Bill, though originally intended as compensation for service, the bill is now seen as a recruiting tool. Today, the GI Bill is no longer a reward for service rendered, while telephone prospecting is the most efficient, face to face prospecting is the most effective

14.
Military
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The task of the military is usually defined as defense of the state, and its citizens, and the prosecution of war against another state. The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself, some of the most enduring images of the classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the points of Pharaoh Ramses IIs reign. A thousand years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might, he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings, as well as a number of lavishly carved triumphal arches. Issue, Possibly cognate with Thousand, cf. Latin and Romance language root word mil-) The first recorded use of the military in English. It comes from the Latin militaris through French, but is of uncertain etymology, the word is now identified as denoting someone that is skilled in use of weapons, or engaged in military service, or in warfare. As a noun, the military usually refers generally to an armed forces, or sometimes, more specifically. In general, it refers to the physicality of armed forces, their personnel, equipment, as an adjective, military originally referred only to soldiers and soldiering, but it soon broadened to apply to land forces in general, and anything to do with their profession. The names of both the Royal Military Academy and United States Military Academy reflect this, as such, it now connotes any activity performed by armed force personnel. Military history is considered to be the history of all conflicts. Military history has a number of facets, one main facet is to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes, so as to more effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of tradition, which is used to create cohesive military forces. Still another may be to learn to prevent wars more effectively, human knowledge about the military is largely based on both recorded and oral history of military conflicts, their participating armies and navies and, more recently, air forces. In the whole history of humanity, every nation had different needs for military forces, how these needs are determined forms the basis of their composition, equipment, and use of facilities. It also determines what military does in terms of peacetime, All military forces, whether large or small, are military organizations that have official state, and world recognition as such. Organisations with similar features are paramilitary, civil defense, militia and these commonalities of the states military define them. Another role of military personnel is to ensure a continuous replacement of departing servicemen and women through recruitment

15.
Bangladesh
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Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eighth most populous country. Dhaka is its capital and largest city, followed by Chittagong which has the countrys largest port, Bangladesh forms the largest and eastern part of the Bengal region. Bangladeshis include people of different ethnic groups and religions, Bengalis, who speak the official Bengali, make up 98% of the population. The politically dominant Bengali Muslims make the nation the worlds third largest Muslim-majority country, most of Bangladesh is covered by the Bengal delta, the largest delta on Earth. The country has 700 rivers and 8,046 km of inland waterways, highlands with evergreen forests are found in the northeastern and southeastern regions of the country. Bangladesh has many islands and a coral reef and it is home to the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest in the world. The countrys biodiversity includes a vast array of plant and wildlife, including critically endangered Bengal tigers, the Greeks and Romans identified the region as Gangaridai, a powerful kingdom of the historical subcontinent, in the 3rd century BCE. Archaeological research has unearthed several ancient cities in Bangladesh, which had trade links for millennia. The Bengal Sultanate and Mughal Bengal transformed the region into a cosmopolitan Islamic imperial power between the 14th and 18th centuries, the region was home to many principalities which had inland naval prowess. It was also a center of the worldwide muslin and silk trade. As part of British India, the region was influenced by the Bengali renaissance, the Partition of British India made East Bengal a part of the Dominion of Pakistan, and was renamed as East Pakistan. The region witnessed the Bengali Language Movement in 1952 and the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, after independence, a parliamentary republic was established. A presidential government was in place between 1975 and 1990, followed by a return to parliamentary democracy, the country has also been affected by poverty, natural disasters, hunger, dominant party systems and military coups. Bangladesh is a power and a major developing nation. Listed as one of the Next Eleven, it has the 46th largest economy and it is one of the largest textile exporters in the world. Its major trading partners are the European Union, the United States, China, India, Japan, Malaysia, with its strategically vital location between Southern, Eastern and Southeast Asia, Bangladesh is an important promoter of regional connectivity and cooperation

16.
Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the largest city and capital, other cities include Santiago de Cuba. Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean, with an area of 109,884 square kilometres, prior to Spanish colonization in the late 15th century, Cuba was inhabited by Amerindian tribes. It remained a colony of Spain until the Spanish–American War of 1898, as a fragile republic, Cuba attempted to strengthen its democratic system, but mounting political radicalization and social strife culminated in the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista in 1952. Further unrest and instability led to Batistas ousting in January 1959 by the July 26 Movement, since 1965, the state has been governed by the Communist Party of Cuba. A point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, a nuclear war broke out during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America, Cuba is a Marxist–Leninist one-party republic, where the role of the vanguard Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Independent observers have accused the Cuban government of human rights abuses. It is one of the worlds last planned economies and its economy is dominated by the exports of sugar, tobacco, coffee, according to the Human Development Index, Cuba is described as a country with high human development and is ranked the eighth highest in North America. It also ranks highly in some metrics of national performance, including health care, the name Cuba comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as where fertile land is abundant, authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that Cuba was named by Columbus for the town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal. Before the arrival of the Spanish, Cuba was inhabited by three distinct tribes of indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Taíno, the Guanajatabey, and the Ciboney people. The ancestors of the Ciboney migrated from the mainland of South America, the Taíno arrived from Hispanola sometime in the 3rd century A. D. When Columbus arrived they were the dominant culture in Cuba, having a population of 150,000. The name Cuba comes from the native Taíno language and it is derived from either coabana meaning great place, or from cubao meaning where fertile land is abundant. The Taíno were farmers, while the Ciboney were farmers as well as fishers and hunter-gatherers, Columbus claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named it Isla Juana after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa, other towns soon followed, including San Cristobal de la Habana, founded in 1515, which later became the capital

17.
South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in the world, along with 12 World Heritage Sites. Annexed into Imperial Japan in 1910, Korea was divided after its surrender in 1945, peace has since mostly continued with the two agreeing to work peacefully for reunification and the South solidifying peace as a regional power with the worlds 10th largest defence budget. South Koreas tiger economy soared at an average of 10% for over 30 years in a period of rapid transformation called the Miracle on the Han River. A long legacy of openness and focus on innovation made it successful, today, it is the worlds fifth largest exporter with the G20s largest budget surplus and highest credit rating of any country in East Asia. It has free trade agreements with 75% of the economy and is the only G20 nation trading freely with China, the US. Since 1988, its constitution guarantees a liberal democracy with high government transparency, high personal freedoms led to the rise of a globally influential pop culture such as K-pop and K-drama, a phenomenon called the Korean Wave, known for its distinctive fashionable and trendy style. Home of the UN Green Climate Fund and GGGI, South Korea is a leader in low carbon growth, committed to helping developing countries as a major DAC. It is the third least ignorant country in the Index of Ignorance, ranking eighth highest for peaceful tolerance. It is the worlds largest spender on R&D per GDP, leading the OECD in graduates in science, the name Korea derives from the name Goryeo. The name Goryeo itself was first used by the ancient kingdom of Goguryeo in the 5th century as a form of its name. The 10th-century kingdom of Goryeo succeeded Goguryeo, and thus inherited its name, the modern spelling of Korea first appeared in the late 17th century in the travel writings of the Dutch East India Companys Hendrick Hamel. After Goryeo was replaced by Joseon in 1392, Joseon became the name for the entire territory. The new official name has its origin in the ancient country of Gojoseon, in 1897, the Joseon dynasty changed the official name of the country from Joseon to Daehan Jeguk. The name Daehan, which means great Han literally, derives from Samhan, however, the name Joseon was still widely used by Koreans to refer to their country, though it was no longer the official name. Under Japanese rule, the two names Han and Joseon coexisted, there were several groups who fought for independence, the most notable being the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea. Following the surrender of Japan, in 1945, the Republic of Korea was adopted as the name for the new country. Since the government only controlled the part of the Korean Peninsula

18.
Kuwait
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Kuwait /kuːˈweɪt/, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq. As of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people,1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil reserves were discovered in 1938, from 1946 to 1982, the country underwent large-scale modernization. In the 1980s, Kuwait experienced a period of geopolitical instability, in 1990, Kuwait was invaded by Iraq. The Iraqi occupation came to an end in 1991 after military intervention by coalition forces, at the end of the war, there were extensive efforts to revive the economy and rebuild national infrastructure. Kuwait is a constitutional emirate with a political system. It has an income economy backed by the worlds sixth largest oil reserves. The Kuwaiti dinar is the highest valued currency in the world, according to the World Bank, the country has the fourth highest per capita income in the world. The Constitution was promulgated in 1962, making Kuwait the most democratic country in the region, in the Arab world, Kuwait is frequently dubbed the Hollywood of the Gulf due to the popularity of its soap operas and theatre. During the Ubaid period, Kuwait was the site of interaction between the peoples of Mesopotamia and Neolithic Eastern Arabia, mainly centered in As-Subiya in northern Kuwait. The earliest evidence of habitation in Kuwait dates back 8000 B. C. where Mesolithic tools were found in Burgan. As-Subiya in northern Kuwait is the earliest evidence of urbanization in the whole Persian Gulf basin area, mesopotamians first settled in the Kuwaiti island of Failaka in 2000 B. C. Traders from the Sumerian city of Ur inhabited Failaka and ran a mercantile business, the island had many Mesopotamian-style buildings typical of those found in Iraq dating from around 2000 B. C. The Neolithic inhabitants of Kuwait were among the worlds earliest maritime traders, one of the worlds earliest reed-boats was discovered in northern Kuwait dating back to the Ubaid period. In 3rd century BC, the ancient Greeks colonized the bay of Kuwait under Alexander the Great, according to Strabo and Arrian, Alexander the Great named Failaka Ikaros because it resembled the Aegean island of that name in size and shape. Remains of Greek colonization include a large Hellenistic fort and Greek temples, in 224 AD, Kuwait became part of the Sassanid Empire. At the time of the Sassanid Empire, Kuwait was known as Meshan, Akkaz was a Partho-Sassanian site, the Sassanid religions tower of silence was discovered in northern Akkaz

19.
United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state‍—‌the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government

20.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

21.
Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genève had 946,000 inhabitants in 212 communities in both Switzerland and France, within Swiss territory, the commuter area named Métropole lémanique contains a population of 1.25 million. This area is essentially spread east from Geneva towards the Riviera area and north-east towards Yverdon-les-Bains, Geneva is the city that hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world. It is also the place where the Geneva Conventions were signed, Geneva was ranked as the worlds ninth most important financial centre for competitiveness by the Global Financial Centres Index, ahead of Frankfurt, and third in Europe behind London and Zürich. A2009 survey by Mercer found that Geneva has the third-highest quality of life of any city in the world, the city has been referred to as the worlds most compact metropolis and the Peace Capital. In 2009 and 2011, Geneva was ranked as, respectively, the city was mentioned in Latin texts, by Caesar, with the spelling Genava, probably from a Celtic toponym *genawa- from the stem *genu-, in the sense of a bending river or estuary. The medieval county of Geneva in Middle Latin was known as pagus major Genevensis or Comitatus Genevensis, the name takes various forms in modern languages, Geneva /dʒᵻˈniːvə/ in English, French, Genève, German, Genf, Italian, Ginevra, and Romansh, Genevra. The city in origin shares its name, *genawa estuary, with the Italian port city of Genoa, Geneva was an Allobrogian border town, fortified against the Helvetii tribe, when the Romans took it in 121 BC. It became Christian under the Late Roman Empire, and acquired its first bishop in the 5th century, having been connected to the bishopric of Vienne in the 4th. In the Middle Ages, Geneva was ruled by a count under the Holy Roman Empire until the late 14th century, around this time the House of Savoy came to dominate the city. In the 15th century, a republican government emerged with the creation of the Grand Council. In 1541, with Protestantism in the ascendancy, John Calvin, by the 18th century, however, Geneva had come under the influence of Catholic France, which cultivated the city as its own. France also tended to be at odds with the ordinary townsfolk, in 1798, revolutionary France under the Directory annexed Geneva. At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, on 1 June 1814, in 1907, the separation of Church and State was adopted. Geneva flourished in the 19th and 20th centuries, becoming the seat of international organizations. Geneva is located at 46°12 North, 6°09 East, at the end of Lake Geneva. It is surrounded by two chains, the Alps and the Jura

22.
War
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War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war as a universal and ancestral aspect of human nature, as concerns a belligerents losses in proportion to its prewar population, the most destructive war in modern history may have been the Paraguayan War. In 2013 war resulted in 31,000 deaths, down from 72,000 deaths in 1990, in 2003, Richard Smalley identified war as the sixth biggest problem facing humanity for the next fifty years. Another byproduct of some wars is the prevalence of propaganda by some or all parties in the conflict, the word is related to the Old Saxon werran, Old High German werran, and the German verwirren, meaning “to confuse”, “to perplex”, and “to bring into confusion”. In German, the equivalent is Krieg, the Spanish, Portuguese, the scholarly study of war is sometimes called polemology, from the Greek polemos, meaning war, and -logy, meaning the study of. Studies of war by military theorists throughout military history have sought to identify the philosophy of war, asymmetric warfare is a conflict between two populations of drastically different levels of military capability or size. Biological warfare, or germ warfare, is the use of weaponized biological toxins or infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses, chemical warfare involves the use of weaponized chemicals in combat. Poison gas as a weapon was principally used during World War I. Civil war is a war between forces belonging to the nation or political entity. Conventional warfare is declared war between states in which nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons are not used or see limited deployment, cyberwarfare involves the actions by a nation-state or international organization to attack and attempt to damage another nations information systems. Information warfare is the application of force on a large scale against information assets and systems, against the computers. Nuclear warfare is warfare in which weapons are the primary, or a major. War of aggression is a war for conquest or gain rather than self-defense, the earliest recorded evidence of war belongs to the Mesolithic cemetery Site 117, which has been determined to be approximately 14,000 years old. About forty-five percent of the skeletons there displayed signs of violent death, since the rise of the state some 5,000 years ago, military activity has occurred over much of the globe. The advent of gunpowder and the acceleration of technological advances led to modern warfare

23.
Child Soldiers International
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Child Soldiers International envisions a world where all children grow up realising their full potential and enjoying all their human rights. For this to be possible, Child Soldiers International is working to prevent armed forces, the treaty was adopted in 2000 and entered into force on 12 February 2002. Child Soldiers International continues to promote adherence to the Optional Protocol, since then, Child Soldiers International has continued to promote the adoption and implementation of international legal standards protecting children from military recruitment or use in hostilities. Child Soldiers International has a London headquarters and conducts research, advocacy, recent programmes have included, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Afghanistan, India, Myanmar, Thailand, and United Kingdom. Child Soldiers International and UNICEF published the Guide to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child in December 2003, the guide summarizes the process of the treatys adoption, its fundamental provisions, and recommends that certain activities be undertaken to ensure its full enforcement. It is a tool written to aid other NGOs, humanitarian groups. In 2001,2004 and 2008, Child Soldiers International published ‘Child Soldiers Global Reports’ which provide a snapshot of the child soldier situation in every country worldwide, in 2016, Child Soldiers International published A law unto themselves. Confronting the recruitment of children by armed groups and this provides a legal analysis of progress made so far in engaging with armed groups about child recruitment and use. Child Soldiers International continues to publish research, analysis and recommendations to support its advocacy goals. These seek to inform policy and action by building understanding of the causes of child recruitment and use. Child Soldiers International is a UK registered charity, with section 501 public charity status in the USA, direct donations are welcomed from individuals, and provide an essential source of support. Annual audited financial statements are filed with the UK Charity Commission, Companies House, for the 2015-16 financial year Child Soldiers International had an annual income of £623,588 and expenditure of £604,832. In 2015-16, 94% of expenditure supported programme activities, Child Soldiers International operates with a small staff team, bringing in specialist consultancy support where needed. Programmatic work is delivered in collaboration with local and national organisations in target countries. Job vacancies are advertised on the organisational website, the organisation is governed by a board of trustees. Military use of children Red Hand Day http, //www. child-soldiers. org/ Interview, Children Abducted for Terrorsim in Sri Lanka

24.
Amnesty International
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Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights that claims to have over 7 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organisation is to research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961, following the publication of the article The Forgotten Prisoners in The Observer on 28 May 1961, Amnesty draws attention to human rights abuses and campaigns for compliance with international laws and standards. It works to public opinion to put pressure on governments that let abuse take place. Amnesty considers capital punishment to be the ultimate, irreversible denial of human rights, the organisation was awarded the 1977 Nobel Peace Prize for its campaign against torture, and the United Nations Prize in the Field of Human Rights in 1978. Amnesty International was founded in London in July 1961 by English labour lawyer Peter Benenson, researchers have never traced the alleged newspaper article in question. In 1960, Portugal was ruled by the Estado Novo government of António de Oliveira Salazar, the government was authoritarian in nature and strongly anti-communist, suppressing enemies of the state as anti-Portuguese. The newspaper reader feels a sense of impotence. Yet if these feelings of disgust could be united into common action, Benenson worked with friend Eric Baker. It marked the launch of Appeal for Amnesty,1961, the aim of which was to mobilise public opinion, quickly and widely, in defence of these individuals, the Appeal for Amnesty was reprinted by a large number of international newspapers. In the same year, Benenson had a published, Persecution 1961. In July 1961 the leadership had decided that the appeal would form the basis of a permanent organisation, Amnesty, Benenson ensured that all three major political parties were represented, enlisting members of parliament from the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, and the Liberal Party. On 30 September 1962, it was officially named Amnesty International, between the Appeal for Amnesty,1961 and September 1962 the organisation had been known simply as Amnesty. From the very beginning, research and campaigning were present in Amnesty Internationals work, a library was established for information about prisoners of conscience and a network of local groups, called THREES groups, was started. Each group worked on behalf of three prisoners, one each of the then three main ideological regions of the world, communist, capitalist and developing. The international movement was starting to agree on its principles and techniques. In 1967 Peter Benenson resigned after an independent inquiry did not support his claims that AI had been infiltrated by British agents, later he claimed that the Central Intelligence Agency had become involved in Amnesty. Leading Amnesty International in the 1970s were key figures Seán MacBride, Amnesty International believed that the reasons underlying torture of prisoners by governments, were either to acquire and obtain information or to quell opposition by the use of terror, or both

25.
Human Rights Watch
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Human Rights Watch is an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. C. and Zurich. The organizations annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor the former Soviet Unions compliance with the Helsinki Accords. Helsinki Watch adopted a practice of naming and shaming abusive governments through media coverage. Americas Watch was founded in 1981 while bloody civil wars engulfed Central America, asia Watch, Africa Watch, and Middle East Watch were added to what was known as The Watch Committees. In 1988, all of these committees were united under one umbrella to form Human Rights Watch, pursuant to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Human Rights Watch opposes violations of what it considers basic human rights. This includes capital punishment and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, HRW advocates freedoms in connection with fundamental human rights, such as freedom of religion and freedom of the press. These reports are used as the basis for drawing attention to abuses and pressuring governments. HRW has documented and reported violations of the laws of war. Human Rights Watch also supports writers worldwide, who are being persecuted for their work and are in need of financial assistance. The Hellman/Hammett grants are financed by the estate of the playwright Lillian Hellman in funds set up in her name and that of her long-time companion, the novelist Dashiell Hammett. In addition to providing assistance, the Hellman/Hammett grants help raise international awareness of activists who are being silenced for speaking out in defense of human rights. Each year, Human Rights Watch presents the Human Rights Defenders Award to activists around the world who demonstrate leadership, the award winners work closely with HRW in investigating and exposing human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch was one of six international NGOs that founded the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers in 1998, Human Rights Watch is a founding member of the International Freedom of Expression Exchange, a global network of non-governmental organizations that monitor censorship worldwide. It also co-founded the Cluster Munition Coalition, which brought about an international convention banning the weapons, HRW employs more than 275 staff—country experts, lawyers, journalists, and academics – and operates in more than 90 countries around the world. The current executive director of HRW is Kenneth Roth, who has held the position since 1993, Roth conducted investigations on abuses in Poland after martial law was declared 1981. He later focused on Haiti, which had just emerged from the Duvalier dictatorship, roth’s awareness of the importance of human rights began with stories his father had told about escaping Nazi Germany in 1938. Roth graduated from Yale Law School and Brown University, HRW has been criticized for perceived bias by the national governments it has investigated for human rights abuses, and by NGO Monitor, and HRWs founder, and former Chairman, Robert L. Bernstein. Bias allegations include undue influence by United States government policy, HRW has routinely publicly responded to, and often rejected, criticism of its reporting and findings

26.
Terre des hommes
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It was founded in 1960 by Edmond Kaiser in Lausanne, Switzerland. The organization is named after Antoine de Saint-Exupérys 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes, an important part of the TDHIFs work is as a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Promoting the Convention on the Rights of a Child is an important activity of Tdh, advocating for children’s rights, defending them, and spreading information are tasks which Terre des Hommes – to the aid of children considers a priority. TDHIF runs the two campaigns Destination Unknown - Children on the Move and Children Win - Changing the Game of Mega Sporting Events, two organizations are based in Switzerland. The Germany branch supports over 500 projects in 25 countries, with funds of €17 million, the Netherlands branch supported 297 projects, created and established by local organisations, in 22 countries. Identities of more than 1,000 offenders from more than 65 countries were handed over to Interpol, arrests were made and other victims were rescued, resulting in global media coverage for the project. In Spain there is also a campaign for awareness-raising, entitled Stop child trafficking, Terre des hommes Spain also carries out significant medical aid for children from several African countries, thanks to the program Journey towards Life. The France branch works with partners in the field on activities that protect and defend economic, Mrs Campbell compiled evidence which helped to convict a British paedophile who was sentenced in 2003 to 9 years hard labour in prison. Another suspect committed suicide after posting a confession on the internet, however Mrs Campbell alleged that senior staff running the centre knew of the abuse, covered it up and failed to inform the authorities. Mrs Campbell faced 6 months in prison if she failed to withdraw the allegations and her husband Gary had already withdrawn similar allegations in order to avoid prison and ensure that one of the couple would be able to look after their two ten-year-old adopted children. The charity eventually withdraw its suit before Campbell was due to be sentenced on 7 March, in a statement the charity said that it asked the court not to sentence Mrs Campbell because her husband had made a full apology. “The case is now closed with the Campbells acknowledgement of wrongdoing, “From the First Instance Court to the Ethiopian Supreme Court the judges have upheld the Terre Des Hommes argument in this respect and ruled accordingly

27.
Save the Children
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The organization promotes policy changes in order to gain more rights for young people especially by enforcing the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Alliance members coordinate emergency-relief efforts, helping to protect children from the effects of war, Save the Children has general consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council. However, on 15 April 1919, the sisters succeeded in separating itself from the politics of the Council, Jebb built up excellent relationships with other Geneva-based organisations, including the Red Cross who supported Save’s International foundation. Jebb used many ground-breaking fund-raising techniques, making Save the Children the first charity in the United Kingdom to use page-length advertisements in newspapers, Jebb contracted doctors, lawyers and other professionals in order to devise mass advertisement campaigns. In 1920, Save the Children started individual child sponsorship as a way to engage more donors, by the end of the year, Save the Children raised the equivalent to about £8,000,000 in today’s money. By August 1921, the UK Save the Children had raised over £1,000,000, however, the Russian famine of 1921 made Jebb realize that Save the Children must be a permanent organisation and that childrens rights constantly need to be protected. Their mission was changed to an international effort to preserve child life wherever it is menaced by conditions of economic hardship. From 1921 to 1923, Save the Children created press campaigns, propaganda movies and feeding centers in Russia and in Turkey in order to feed and educate thousands of refugees. They began to work with other organisations such as the Russian Famine Relief Fund. Although Russia was largely closed off to international relief and aid, at home, the Daily Express criticised the Funds work, denying the severity of the situation and claiming they should be helping their own people before helping Russia. The charity responded with increased publicity about the famine, showing images of starving children, the campaign gained national appeal, eventually allowing the organisation to charter the SS Torcello off to Russia with 600 tons worth of relief supplies. Over 157 million rations were given out, saving nearly 300,000 children, improved conditions meant Save the Childrens Russian feeding program was able to be closed in the summer of 1923, after having won international acclaim. At the end of World War II, images of malnourished, Jebb and her sister worked to gain public sympathy in order to elicit support aid. At the same time, work in the United Kingdom focused on improving conditions for growing up in cities devastated by bombing and facing huge disruptions in family life. Like other aid agencies, Save the Children was active in the disasters of the era—especially the Vietnam War. The latter brought shocking images of child starvation onto the screens of the West for the first time in a major way. The sort of mass-marketing campaigns first used by Save the Children in the 1920s were repeated, disasters in Ethiopia, Sudan, and many other world hotspots led to appeals which brought public donations on a huge scale, and a consequent expansion of the organisations work. However, the childrens rights-based approach to development originated by Jebb continues to be an important factor and it was used in a major campaign in the late 1990s against the use of child soldiers in Africa

28.
Denmark
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Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Scandinavian country in Europe and a sovereign state. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, Denmark also comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has an area of 42,924 square kilometres. The country consists of a peninsula, Jutland, and an archipelago of 443 named islands, with the largest being Zealand, the islands are characterised by flat, arable land and sandy coasts, low elevation and a temperate climate. The unified kingdom of Denmark emerged in the 10th century as a proficient seafaring nation in the struggle for control of the Baltic Sea, Denmark, Sweden and Norway were ruled together under the Kalmar Union, established in 1397 and ending with Swedish secession in 1523. Denmark and Norway remained under the monarch until outside forces dissolved the union in 1814. The union with Norway made it possible for Denmark to inherit the Faroe Islands, Iceland, beginning in the 17th century, there were several cessions of territory to Sweden. In the 19th century there was a surge of nationalist movements, Denmark remained neutral during World War I. In April 1940, a German invasion saw brief military skirmishes while the Danish resistance movement was active from 1943 until the German surrender in May 1945, the Constitution of Denmark was signed on 5 June 1849, ending the absolute monarchy which had begun in 1660. It establishes a constitutional monarchy organised as a parliamentary democracy, the government and national parliament are seated in Copenhagen, the nations capital, largest city and main commercial centre. Denmark exercises hegemonic influence in the Danish Realm, devolving powers to handle internal affairs, Home rule was established in the Faroe Islands in 1948, in Greenland home rule was established in 1979 and further autonomy in 2009. Denmark became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973, maintaining certain opt-outs, it retains its own currency, the krone. It is among the members of NATO, the Nordic Council, the OECD, OSCE. The etymology of the word Denmark, and especially the relationship between Danes and Denmark and the unifying of Denmark as a kingdom, is a subject which attracts debate. This is centred primarily on the prefix Dan and whether it refers to the Dani or a historical person Dan and the exact meaning of the -mark ending. Most handbooks derive the first part of the word, and the name of the people, from a word meaning land, related to German Tenne threshing floor. The -mark is believed to mean woodland or borderland, with references to the border forests in south Schleswig. The first recorded use of the word Danmark within Denmark itself is found on the two Jelling stones, which are believed to have been erected by Gorm the Old and Harald Bluetooth

29.
Ethiopia
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Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in the world and it occupies a total area of 1,100,000 square kilometres, and its capital and largest city is Addis Ababa. Some of the oldest evidence for modern humans has been found in Ethiopia. It is widely considered as the region from modern humans first set out for the Middle East. According to linguists, the first Afroasiatic-speaking populations settled in the Horn region during the ensuing Neolithic era, tracing its roots to the 2nd millennium BC, Ethiopia was a monarchy for most of its history. During the first centuries AD, the Kingdom of Aksum maintained a unified civilization in the region, subsequently, many African nations adopted the colors of Ethiopias flag following their independence. It was the first independent African member of the 20th-century League of Nations, Ethiopias ancient Geez script, also known as Ethiopic, is one of the oldest alphabets still in use in the world. The Ethiopian calendar, which is seven years and three months behind the Gregorian calendar, co-exists alongside the Borana calendar. A slight majority of the population adheres to Christianity, while around a third follows Islam, the country is the site of the Migration to Abyssinia and the oldest Muslim settlement in Africa at Negash. A substantial population of Ethiopian Jews, known as Bete Israel, resided in Ethiopia until the 1980s, Ethiopia is a multilingual nation with around 80 ethnolinguistic groups, the four largest of which are the Oromiffa, Amhara, Somali, and Tigrayans. Most people in the country speak Afroasiatic languages of the Cushitic or Semitic branches, additionally, Omotic languages are spoken by ethnic minority groups inhabiting the southern regions. Nilo-Saharan languages are spoken by the nations Nilotic ethnic minorities. Ethiopia is the place of origin for the coffee bean which originated from the place called Kefa and it is a land of natural contrasts, with its vast fertile West, jungles, and numerous rivers, and the worlds hottest settlement of Dallol in its north. The Ethiopian Highlands are Africas largest continuous mountain ranges, and Sof Omar Caves contain Africas largest cave, Ethiopia has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Africa. Ethiopia is one of the members of the UN, the Group of 24, the Non-Aligned Movement, G-77. In the 1970s and 1980s, Ethiopia suffered from civil wars, the country has begun to recover recently however, and now has the largest economy in East Africa and Central Africa. According to Global Fire Power, Ethiopia has the 42nd most powerful military in the world, the origin of the word Ethiopia is uncertain

30.
Finland
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Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in the geographical region of Fennoscandia, which also includes Scandinavia. Finlands population is 5.5 million, and the majority of the population is concentrated in the southern region,88. 7% of the population is Finnish people who speak Finnish, a Uralic language unrelated to the Scandinavian languages, the second major group are the Finland-Swedes. In terms of area, it is the eighth largest country in Europe, Finland is a parliamentary republic with a central government based in the capital Helsinki, local governments in 311 municipalities, and an autonomous region, the Åland Islands. Over 1.4 million people live in the Greater Helsinki metropolitan area, from the late 12th century, Finland was an integral part of Sweden, a legacy reflected in the prevalence of the Swedish language and its official status. In the spirit of the notion of Adolf Ivar Arwidsson, we are not Swedes, we do not want to become Russians, let us therefore be Finns, nevertheless, in 1809, Finland was incorporated into the Russian Empire as the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland. In 1906, Finland became the nation in the world to give the right to vote to all adult citizens. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Finland declared itself independent, in 1918, the fledgling state was divided by civil war, with the Bolshevik-leaning Reds supported by the equally new Soviet Russia, fighting the Whites, supported by the German Empire. After a brief attempt to establish a kingdom, the became a republic. During World War II, the Soviet Union sought repeatedly to occupy Finland, with Finland losing parts of Karelia, Salla and Kuusamo, Petsamo and some islands, Finland joined the United Nations in 1955 and established an official policy of neutrality. The Finno-Soviet Treaty of 1948 gave the Soviet Union some leverage in Finnish domestic politics during the Cold War era, Finland was a relative latecomer to industrialization, remaining a largely agrarian country until the 1950s. It rapidly developed an advanced economy while building an extensive Nordic-style welfare state, resulting in widespread prosperity, however, Finnish GDP growth has been negative in 2012–2014, with a preceding nadir of −8% in 2009. Finland is a top performer in numerous metrics of national performance, including education, economic competitiveness, civil liberties, quality of life, a large majority of Finns are members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, though freedom of religion is guaranteed under the Finnish Constitution. The first known appearance of the name Finland is thought to be on three rune-stones. Two were found in the Swedish province of Uppland and have the inscription finlonti, the third was found in Gotland, in the Baltic Sea. It has the inscription finlandi and dates from the 13th century, the name can be assumed to be related to the tribe name Finns, which is mentioned first known time AD98. The name Suomi has uncertain origins, but a candidate for a source is the Proto-Baltic word *źemē, in addition to the close relatives of Finnish, this name is also used in the Baltic languages Latvian and Lithuanian

31.
Japan
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Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referred to by the famous epithet Land of the Rising Sun in reference to its Japanese name. Japan is an archipelago consisting of about 6,852 islands. The four largest are Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku, the country is divided into 47 prefectures in eight regions. Hokkaido being the northernmost prefecture and Okinawa being the southernmost one, the population of 127 million is the worlds tenth largest. Japanese people make up 98. 5% of Japans total population, approximately 9.1 million people live in the city of Tokyo, the capital of Japan. Archaeological research indicates that Japan was inhabited as early as the Upper Paleolithic period, the first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other regions, mainly China, followed by periods of isolation, from the 12th century until 1868, Japan was ruled by successive feudal military shoguns who ruled in the name of the Emperor. Japan entered into a period of isolation in the early 17th century. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan is a member of the UN, the OECD, the G7, the G8, the country has the worlds third-largest economy by nominal GDP and the worlds fourth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It is also the worlds fourth-largest exporter and fourth-largest importer, although Japan has officially renounced its right to declare war, it maintains a modern military with the worlds eighth-largest military budget, used for self-defense and peacekeeping roles. Japan is a country with a very high standard of living. Its population enjoys the highest life expectancy and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the world, in ancient China, Japan was called Wo 倭. It was mentioned in the third century Chinese historical text Records of the Three Kingdoms in the section for the Wei kingdom, Wa became disliked because it has the connotation of the character 矮, meaning dwarf. The 倭 kanji has been replaced with the homophone Wa, meaning harmony, the Japanese word for Japan is 日本, which is pronounced Nippon or Nihon and literally means the origin of the sun. The earliest record of the name Nihon appears in the Chinese historical records of the Tang dynasty, at the start of the seventh century, a delegation from Japan introduced their country as Nihon

32.
Mozambique
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It is separated from Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans, the area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonised by Portugal from 1505. The country was an important place where Somali merchants enslaved the local population, after over four centuries of Portuguese rule, Mozambique gained independence in 1975, becoming the Peoples Republic of Mozambique shortly thereafter. After only two years of independence, the country descended into an intense and protracted civil war lasting from 1977 to 1992, in 1994, Mozambique held its first multiparty elections and has remained a relatively stable presidential republic. However, since 2013, following more than 20 years of peace, Mozambique is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped countries in the world. Mozambique is endowed with rich and extensive natural resources, the countrys economy is based largely on agriculture, but industry is growing, mainly food and beverages, chemical manufacturing, and aluminium and petroleum production. The countrys tourism sector is also growing, South Africa is Mozambiques main trading partner and source of foreign direct investment. Belgium, Brazil, Portugal, and Spain are also among the countrys most important economic partners, since 2001, Mozambiques annual average GDP growth has been among the worlds highest. However, the ranks among the lowest in GDP per capita, human development, measures of inequality. The only official language of Mozambique is Portuguese, which is mostly as a second language by about half of the population. Common native languages include Makhuwa, Sena, and Swahili, the countrys population of around 24 million is composed overwhelmingly of Bantu people. The largest religion in Mozambique is Christianity, with significant minorities following Islam, the island-town was the capital of the Portuguese colony until 1898, when it was moved south to Lourenço Marques. Between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, waves of Bantu-speaking people migrated from the west and north through the Zambezi River valley and then gradually into the plateau and they established agricultural communities or societies based on herding cattle. They brought with them the technology for smelting and smithing iron, from the late first millennium AD, vast Indian Ocean trade networks extended as far south into Mozambique as the ancient port town of Chibuene. Connections are evident at sites including Manyikeni for 11–14th century ties with the inland Great Zimbabwe kingdoms, from about 1500, Portuguese trading posts and forts displaced the Arabic commercial and military hegemony, becoming regular ports of call on the new European sea route to the east. The voyage of Vasco da Gama around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 marked the Portuguese entry into trade, politics, the Portuguese attempted to legitimise and consolidate their trade and settlement positions through the creation of prazos tied to Portuguese settlement and administration. Historically within Mozambique there was slavery, Human beings were bought and sold by African tribal chiefs, Arab Muslim traders and Portuguese and other European traders as well

33.
Norway
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The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, Norway has a total area of 385,252 square kilometres and a population of 5,258,317. The country shares a long border with Sweden. Norway is bordered by Finland and Russia to the north-east, Norway has an extensive coastline, facing the North Atlantic Ocean and the Barents Sea. King Harald V of the Dano-German House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway, erna Solberg became Prime Minister in 2013, replacing Jens Stoltenberg. A constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the Parliament, the Cabinet and the Supreme Court, as determined by the 1814 Constitution, the kingdom is established as a merger of several petty kingdoms. By the traditional count from the year 872, the kingdom has existed continuously for 1,144 years, Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels, counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have an amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States, the country maintains a combination of market economy and a Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system. Norway has extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, the petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the countrys gross domestic product. On a per-capita basis, Norway is the worlds largest producer of oil, the country has the fourth-highest per capita income in the world on the World Bank and IMF lists. On the CIAs GDP per capita list which includes territories and some regions, from 2001 to 2006, and then again from 2009 to 2017, Norway had the highest Human Development Index ranking in the world. It also has the highest inequality-adjusted ranking, Norway ranks first on the World Happiness Report, the OECD Better Life Index, the Index of Public Integrity and the Democracy Index. Norway has two names, Noreg in Nynorsk and Norge in Bokmål. The name Norway comes from the Old English word Norðrveg mentioned in 880, meaning way or way leading to the north. In contrasting with suðrvegar southern way for Germany, and austrvegr eastern way for the Baltic, the Anglo-Saxon of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. This was the area of Harald Fairhair, the first king of Norway, and because of him

34.
Portugal
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Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, to the west and south it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east and north by Spain. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 kilometres long and considered the longest uninterrupted border within the European Union, the republic also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of the Azores and Madeira, both autonomous regions with their own regional governments. The territory of modern Portugal has been settled, invaded. The Pre-Celts, Celts, Carthaginians and the Romans were followed by the invasions of the Visigothic, in 711 the Iberian Peninsula was invaded by the Moors, making Portugal part of Muslim Al Andalus. Portugal was born as result of the Christian Reconquista, and in 1139, Afonso Henriques was proclaimed King of Portugal, in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal established the first global empire, becoming one of the worlds major economic, political and military powers. Portugal monopolized the trade during this time, and the Portuguese Empire expanded with military campaigns led in Asia. After the 1910 revolution deposed the monarchy, the democratic but unstable Portuguese First Republic was established, democracy was restored after the Portuguese Colonial War and the Carnation Revolution in 1974. Shortly after, independence was granted to almost all its overseas territories, Portugal has left a profound cultural and architectural influence across the globe and a legacy of over 250 million Portuguese speakers today. Portugal is a country with a high-income advanced economy and a high living standard. It is the 5th most peaceful country in the world, maintaining a unitary semi-presidential republican form of government and it has the 18th highest Social Progress in the world, putting it ahead of other Western European countries like France, Spain and Italy. Portugal is a pioneer when it comes to drug decriminalization, as the nation decriminalized the possession of all drugs for use in 2001. The early history of Portugal is shared with the rest of the Iberian Peninsula located in South Western Europe, the name of Portugal derives from the joined Romano-Celtic name Portus Cale. Other influences include some 5th-century vestiges of Alan settlements, which were found in Alenquer, Coimbra, the region of present-day Portugal was inhabited by Neanderthals and then by Homo sapiens, who roamed the border-less region of the northern Iberian peninsula. These were subsistence societies that, although they did not establish prosperous settlements, neolithic Portugal experimented with domestication of herding animals, the raising of some cereal crops and fluvial or marine fishing. Chief among these tribes were the Calaicians or Gallaeci of Northern Portugal, the Lusitanians of central Portugal, the Celtici of Alentejo, a few small, semi-permanent, commercial coastal settlements were also founded in the Algarve region by Phoenicians-Carthaginians. Romans first invaded the Iberian Peninsula in 219 BC, during the last days of Julius Caesar, almost the entire peninsula had been annexed to the Roman Republic. The Carthaginians, Romes adversary in the Punic Wars, were expelled from their coastal colonies and it suffered a severe setback in 150 BC, when a rebellion began in the north

35.
South Africa
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South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variety of ethnic groups speaking different Bantu languages, the remaining population consists of Africas largest communities of European, Asian, and multiracial ancestry. South Africa is a multiethnic society encompassing a variety of cultures, languages. Its pluralistic makeup is reflected in the recognition of 11 official languages. The country is one of the few in Africa never to have had a coup détat, however, the vast majority of black South Africans were not enfranchised until 1994. During the 20th century, the black majority sought to recover its rights from the dominant white minority, with this struggle playing a role in the countrys recent history. The National Party imposed apartheid in 1948, institutionalising previous racial segregation, since 1994, all ethnic and linguistic groups have held political representation in the countrys democracy, which comprises a parliamentary republic and nine provinces. South Africa is often referred to as the Rainbow Nation to describe the multicultural diversity. The World Bank classifies South Africa as an economy. Its economy is the second-largest in Africa, and the 34th-largest in the world, in terms of purchasing power parity, South Africa has the seventh-highest per capita income in Africa. However, poverty and inequality remain widespread, with about a quarter of the population unemployed, nevertheless, South Africa has been identified as a middle power in international affairs, and maintains significant regional influence. The name South Africa is derived from the geographic location at the southern tip of Africa. Upon formation the country was named the Union of South Africa in English, since 1961 the long form name in English has been the Republic of South Africa. In Dutch the country was named Republiek van Zuid-Afrika, replaced in 1983 by the Afrikaans Republiek van Suid-Afrika, since 1994 the Republic has had an official name in each of its 11 official languages. Mzansi, derived from the Xhosa noun umzantsi meaning south, is a name for South Africa. South Africa contains some of the oldest archaeological and human fossil sites in the world, extensive fossil remains have been recovered from a series of caves in Gauteng Province. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage site and has termed the Cradle of Humankind

36.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe

37.
Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland is a country geographically divided between the Alps, the Swiss Plateau and the Jura, spanning an area of 41,285 km2. The establishment of the Old Swiss Confederacy dates to the medieval period, resulting from a series of military successes against Austria. Swiss independence from the Holy Roman Empire was formally recognized in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The country has a history of armed neutrality going back to the Reformation, it has not been in a state of war internationally since 1815, nevertheless, it pursues an active foreign policy and is frequently involved in peace-building processes around the world. In addition to being the birthplace of the Red Cross, Switzerland is home to international organisations. On the European level, it is a member of the European Free Trade Association. However, it participates in the Schengen Area and the European Single Market through bilateral treaties, spanning the intersection of Germanic and Romance Europe, Switzerland comprises four main linguistic and cultural regions, German, French, Italian and Romansh. Due to its diversity, Switzerland is known by a variety of native names, Schweiz, Suisse, Svizzera. On coins and stamps, Latin is used instead of the four living languages, Switzerland is one of the most developed countries in the world, with the highest nominal wealth per adult and the eighth-highest per capita gross domestic product according to the IMF. Zürich and Geneva have each been ranked among the top cities in the world in terms of quality of life, with the former ranked second globally, according to Mercer. The English name Switzerland is a compound containing Switzer, a term for the Swiss. The English adjective Swiss is a loan from French Suisse, also in use since the 16th century. The name Switzer is from the Alemannic Schwiizer, in origin an inhabitant of Schwyz and its associated territory, the Swiss began to adopt the name for themselves after the Swabian War of 1499, used alongside the term for Confederates, Eidgenossen, used since the 14th century. The data code for Switzerland, CH, is derived from Latin Confoederatio Helvetica. The toponym Schwyz itself was first attested in 972, as Old High German Suittes, ultimately related to swedan ‘to burn’

38.
Austria
–
Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying within the Alps, only 32% of the country is below 500 m. The majority of the population speaks local Bavarian dialects of German as their native language, other local official languages are Hungarian, Burgenland Croatian, and Slovene. The origins of modern-day Austria date back to the time of the Habsburg dynasty, from the time of the Reformation, many northern German princes, resenting the authority of the Emperor, used Protestantism as a flag of rebellion. Following Napoleons defeat, Prussia emerged as Austrias chief competitor for rule of a greater Germany, Austrias defeat by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, cleared the way for Prussia to assert control over the rest of Germany. In 1867, the empire was reformed into Austria-Hungary, Austria was thus the first to go to war in the July Crisis, which would ultimately escalate into World War I. The First Austrian Republic was established in 1919, in 1938 Nazi Germany annexed Austria in the Anschluss. This lasted until the end of World War II in 1945, after which Germany was occupied by the Allies, in 1955, the Austrian State Treaty re-established Austria as a sovereign state, ending the occupation. In the same year, the Austrian Parliament created the Declaration of Neutrality which declared that the Second Austrian Republic would become permanently neutral, today, Austria is a parliamentary representative democracy comprising nine federal states. The capital and largest city, with a population exceeding 1.7 million, is Vienna, other major urban areas of Austria include Graz, Linz, Salzburg and Innsbruck. Austria is one of the richest countries in the world, with a nominal per capita GDP of $43,724, the country has developed a high standard of living and in 2014 was ranked 21st in the world for its Human Development Index. Austria has been a member of the United Nations since 1955, joined the European Union in 1995, Austria also signed the Schengen Agreement in 1995, and adopted the euro currency in 1999. The German name for Austria, Österreich, meant eastern realm in Old High German, and is cognate with the word Ostarrîchi and this word is probably a translation of Medieval Latin Marchia orientalis into a local dialect. Austria was a prefecture of Bavaria created in 976, the word Austria is a Latinisation of the German name and was first recorded in the 12th century. Accordingly, Norig would essentially mean the same as Ostarrîchi and Österreich, the Celtic name was eventually Latinised to Noricum after the Romans conquered the area that encloses most of modern-day Austria, around 15 BC. Noricum later became a Roman province in the mid-first century AD, heers hypothesis is not accepted by linguists. Settled in ancient times, the Central European land that is now Austria was occupied in pre-Roman times by various Celtic tribes, the Celtic kingdom of Noricum was later claimed by the Roman Empire and made a province

39.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks

Secretary-General of the United Nations
–
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. The Secretary-General serves as the administrative officer of the United Nations. The role of the United Nations Secretariat, and of the Secretary-General in particular, is out by Chapter XV of the United Nat

1.
Incumbent Ban Ki-moon since 1 January 2007

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Emblem of the United Nations

3.
The Secretariat Building is a 154 m (505 ft) tall skyscraper and the centerpiece of the Headquarters of the United Nations.

4.
–

Wikisource
–
Wikisource is an online digital library of free content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project, the projects aims are to host all forms of free text, in many languages, and translations. Originally conceived as an archive to sto

1.
The original Wikisource logo

2.
Screenshot of wikisource.org home page

3.
::: Original text

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::: Action of the modernizing tool

Military use of children
–
Throughout history and in many cultures, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were against cultural morals. In World War I, in Great Britain 250,000 boys under 18 managed to join the army, in World War II, child soldiers fought throughout Europe, in the Warsaw Uprising, in the Jewish resistance, and

1.
A Chinese Nationalist soldier, age 10, member of a Chinese division from the X Force, boarding planes in Burma bound for China, May 1944.

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"Child Soldier in the Ivory Coast ", Gilbert G. Groud, 2007.

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Children of the Omo Valley in Ethiopia.

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A group of demobilized child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Violent non-state actor
–
Violent non-state actors, also known as armed non-state actors, are non-state actors, i. e. The term has been used in papers published by the U. S. military. There are many reasons why violent non-state actors develop, in the United States there are fears that the gangs have gotten so out of control they may become violent non-state actors. Thomas,

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Contras in Nicaragua, 1987

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MS-13 gang graffiti.

United Nations General Assembly
–
The United Nations General Assembly is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation. The General Assembly is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN. It has also established a number of subsidiary organs. It can also reconvene for special and e

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United Nations (UN) General Assembly hall at the UN Headquarters, New York City

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United Nations General Assembly

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Westminster Central Hall, London, the location of the first meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in 1946.

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Russian President Dmitry Medvedev addresses the 64th session of the UN General Assembly on 24 September 2009

Convention on the Rights of the Child
–
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a human rights treaty which sets out the civil, political, economic, social, health and cultural rights of children. The Convention defines a child as any human being under the age of eighteen, Nations that ratify this convention are bound to it by international law. Compliance is monitore

1.
Parties to the convention

United Nations General Assembly resolution
–
A United Nations General Assembly Resolution is voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly. General Assembly resolutions usually require a majority to pass. 1946 Resolution 1, Established the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy, for the eliminati

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Organisations

World War I
–
World War I, also known as the First World War, the Great War, or the War to End All Wars, was a global war originating in Europe that lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. More than 70 million military personnel, including 60 million Europeans, were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history and it was one of the deadliest conflicts i

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Clockwise from the top: The aftermath of shelling during the Battle of the Somme, Mark V tanks cross the Hindenburg Line, HMS Irresistible sinks after hitting a mine in the Dardanelles, a British Vickers machine gun crew wears gas masks during the Battle of the Somme, Albatros D.III fighters of Jagdstaffel 11

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Sarajevo citizens reading a poster with the proclamation of the Austrian annexation in 1908.

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This picture is usually associated with the arrest of Gavrilo Princip, although some believe it depicts Ferdinand Behr, a bystander.

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Serbian Army Blériot XI "Oluj", 1915.

World War II
–
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directl

1.
Clockwise from top left: Chinese forces in the Battle of Wanjialing, Australian 25-pounder guns during the First Battle of El Alamein, German Stuka dive bombers on the Eastern Front in December 1943, a U.S. naval force in the Lingayen Gulf, Wilhelm Keitel signing the German Instrument of Surrender, Soviet troops in the Battle of Stalingrad

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The League of Nations assembly, held in Geneva, Switzerland, 1930

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Adolf Hitler at a German National Socialist political rally in Weimar, October 1930

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Italian soldiers recruited in 1935, on their way to fight the Second Italo-Abyssinian War

Warsaw Uprising
–
The Warsaw Uprising was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance Home Army to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. The uprising was timed to coincide with the Soviet Unions Red Army approaching the eastern suburbs of the city and the retreat of German forces. However, the Soviet advance stopped short, enabling the Germans to regro

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Polish Home Army positions, outlined in red, on day 4 (4 August 1944)

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Commander Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski of the Polish Home Army.

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Weapons used by the resistance, including the Błyskawica submachine gun —one of very few weapons designed and mass-produced covertly in occupied Europe.

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Kubuś an armoured car made by the Home Army during the Uprising. A single unit was built by the "Krybar" Regiment on the chassis of a Chevrolet 157 van.

Soviet Army
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It had 2.4 million men under its service during the Cold War. At the end of World War II the Red Army had over 500 rifle divisions and their experience of war gave the Soviets such faith in tank forces that the infantry force was cut by two-thirds. The Tank Corps of the war period were converted to tank divisions. MRDs had three motorized rifle reg

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A U.S. assessment of the seven most important items of Soviet combat equipment in 1981

Cold War
–
The Cold War was a state of geopolitical tension after World War II between powers in the Eastern Bloc and powers in the Western Bloc. Historians do not fully agree on the dates, but a common timeframe is the period between 1947, the year the Truman Doctrine was announced, and 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed. The term cold is used there w

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Photograph of the Berlin Wall taken from the West side. The Wall was built in 1961 to prevent East Germans from fleeing and to stop an economically disastrous drain of workers. It was a symbol of the Cold War and its fall in 1989 marked the approaching end of the war.

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Allied troops in Vladivostok, August 1918, during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.

Military recruitment
–
Military recruitment is recruitment for military positions, that is, the act of requesting people, usually male adults, to join a military voluntarily. Involuntary military recruitment is known as conscription, to facilitate this process, armed forces have established recruiting commands. Military recruitment can be considered part of science if an

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French marines recruitement poster

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United States Navy recruitment poster from 1918. Note the appeal to patriotism. (Digitally restored).

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A British Military recruitment centre in Oxford

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A United States Military recruiting station on Times Square, NYC

Military
–
The task of the military is usually defined as defense of the state, and its citizens, and the prosecution of war against another state. The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself, some of the most enduring images of the classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle

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Soldiers from the Canadian Grenadier Guards in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan

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CF-18 Hornet launches a laser-guided bomb

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The Kawasaki C-1 is a tactical military transport of the Japan Air Self-Defence Force.

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Dutch civilians celebrating the arrival of the I Canadian Corps in Utrecht as the Canadian Army liberates the Netherlands from Nazi occupation

Bangladesh
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Bangladesh, officially the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It shares land borders with India and Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China are located near Bangladesh but do not share a border with it. The countrys maritime territory in the Bay of Bengal is roughly equal to the size of its land area, Bangladesh is the worlds eigh

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Mahasthangarh is the oldest archaeological site in Bangladesh. It dates back to 700 BCE and was the ancient capital of the Pundra Kingdom

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Asia in 323 BC, the Gangaridai Empire in relation to the Nanda Empire, Alexander 's Empire and neighbours

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The Somapura Mahavihara, once the largest Buddhist vihara in South Asia, built by Emperor Dharmapala of Bengal

Cuba
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Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a country comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean where the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, and it is south of both the U. S. state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Haiti, and north of Jamaica. Havana is the

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Hatuey, an early Taíno chief of Cuba.

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Flag

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Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, conquistador of Cuba.

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Slaves in Cuba unloading ice from Maine, c. 1832.

South Korea
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South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea, is a sovereign state in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula. The earliest Korean pottery dates to 8000 BC, with three kingdoms flourishing in the 1st century BC and its rich and vibrant culture left 19 UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritages of Humanity, the third largest in

1.
Flag

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Balhae and Silla, 830 CE

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Jikji, the first known book printed with movable metal type in 1377. Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris

Kuwait
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Kuwait /kuːˈweɪt/, officially the State of Kuwait, is a country in Western Asia. Situated in the edge of Eastern Arabia at the tip of the Persian Gulf, it shares borders with Iraq. As of 2016, Kuwait has a population of 4.2 million people,1.3 million are Kuwaitis and 2.9 million are expatriates, expatriates account for 70% of the population. Oil re

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Oil fires in Kuwait in 1991, which were a result of the scorched earth policy of Iraqi military forces retreating from Kuwait.

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Flag

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Kuwait National Assembly Building

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Satellite image of Kuwait

United Kingdom
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border wi

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Stonehenge, in Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.

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Flag

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The Bayeux Tapestry depicts the Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.

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The Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.

United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean,

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Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764

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Flag

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The signing of the Mayflower Compact, 1620.

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The Declaration of Independence: the Committee of Five presenting their draft to the Second Continental Congress in 1776

Geneva
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Geneva is the second most populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situated where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the capital of the Republic, the municipality has a population of 198,072, and the canton has 484,736 residents. In 2014, the compact agglomération du Grand Genèv

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L'Escalade, the failed surprise-attack (12 December 1602) made by troops sent by Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy, to take Geneva

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Geneva seen from SPOT Satellite

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The Geneva area seen from the Salève in France. The Jura mountains can be seen on the horizon.

War
–
War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, an absence of war is usually called peace. Warfare refers to the activities and characteristics of types of war. Total war is warfare that is not restricted to legitimate military targets. While some scholars see war

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The War by Tadeusz Cyprian (1949), a photograph in the collection of the National Museum in Warsaw showing ruins of Warsaw's Napoleon Square in the aftermath of World War II.

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Mural of War (1896), by Gari Melchers

3.
Ruins of Guernica (1937). The Spanish Civil War was one of Europe's bloodiest and most brutal civil wars.

4.
Japanese samurai attacking a Mongol ship, 13th century

Child Soldiers International
–
Child Soldiers International envisions a world where all children grow up realising their full potential and enjoying all their human rights. For this to be possible, Child Soldiers International is working to prevent armed forces, the treaty was adopted in 2000 and entered into force on 12 February 2002. Child Soldiers International continues to p

Amnesty International
–
Amnesty International is a non-governmental organisation focused on human rights that claims to have over 7 million members and supporters around the world. The stated objective of the organisation is to research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights. Amnesty International was founded in London in 1961, following the p

Human Rights Watch
–
Human Rights Watch is an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. C. and Zurich. The organizations annual expenses totaled $50.6 million in 2011, Human Rights Watch was founded by Robert L. Bernstein as a private American NGO in 1978, under the name Helsinki Watch, to monitor

Terre des hommes
–
It was founded in 1960 by Edmond Kaiser in Lausanne, Switzerland. The organization is named after Antoine de Saint-Exupérys 1939 philosophical memoir Terre des hommes, an important part of the TDHIFs work is as a consultant to the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Promoting the Convention on the Rights of a Child is an important activity

1.
Tdh in Kenya - Mélanie Rouiller

Save the Children
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The organization promotes policy changes in order to gain more rights for young people especially by enforcing the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child. Alliance members coordinate emergency-relief efforts, helping to protect children from the effects of war, Save the Children has general consultative status with the United Nations Economic an

1.
Save the Children

Denmark
–
Denmark, officially the Kingdom of Denmark, is a Scandinavian country in Europe and a sovereign state. The southernmost and smallest of the Nordic countries, it is south-west of Sweden and south of Norway, Denmark also comprises two autonomous constituent countries in the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands and Greenland. Denmark has an area of

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The gilded side of the Trundholm sun chariot dating from the Nordic Bronze Age.

2.
Flag

3.
The Ladby ship, the largest ship burial found in Denmark.

4.
Larger of the two Jelling stones, raised by Harald Bluetooth.

Ethiopia
–
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north and northeast, Djibouti and Somalia to the east, Sudan and South Sudan to the west, and Kenya to the south. With nearly 100 million inhabitants, Ethiopia is the most populous landlocked country in

1.
Coins of the Axumite king Endybis, 227–235 AD, at the British Museum. The inscriptions in Ancient Greek read "AΧWMITW BACIΛEYC" ("King of Axum") and "ΕΝΔΥΒΙC ΒΑCΙΛΕΥC" ("King Endybis").

2.
Flag

3.
Dawit II (Lebna Dengel), Ethiopia (nəgusä nägäst) (Emperor) of Ethiopia and a member of the Solomonic dynasty.

4.
King Fasilides' Castle.

Finland
–
Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a sovereign state in Northern Europe. A peninsula with the Gulf of Finland to the south and the Gulf of Bothnia to the west, the country has borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north. Estonia is south of the country across the Gulf of Finland, Finland is a Nordic country situated in th

1.
Hakkapeliitta featured on a 1940 Finnish stamp

2.
Flag

3.
Now lying within Helsinki, Suomenlinna is a UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of an inhabited 18th century sea fortress built on six islands. It is one of Finland's most popular tourist attractions.

4.
Pioneers in Karelia (1900) by Eero Järnefelt

Japan
–
Japan is a sovereign island nation in Eastern Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies off the eastern coast of the Asia Mainland and stretches from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea, the kanji that make up Japans name mean sun origin. 日 can be read as ni and means sun while 本 can be read as hon, or pon, Japan is often referr

1.
The Golden Hall and five-storey pagoda of Hōryū-ji, among the oldest wooden buildings in the world, National Treasures, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site

3.
Samurai warriors face Mongols, during the Mongol invasions of Japan. The Kamikaze, two storms, are said to have saved Japan from Mongol fleets.

4.
Samurai could kill a commoner for the slightest insult and were widely feared by the Japanese population. Edo period, 1798

Mozambique
–
It is separated from Madagascar by the Mozambique Channel to the east. The capital and largest city is Maputo, between the 1st and 5th centuries AD, Bantu-speaking peoples migrated from farther north and west. Swahili commercial ports existed along the coasts until the arrival of Europeans, the area was explored by Vasco da Gama in 1498 and colonis

1.
Depiction of Arab slave traders and their captives along the Ruvuma river

2.
Flag

3.
The Island of Mozambique is a small coral island at the mouth of Mossuril Bay on the Nacala coast of northern Mozambique, first explored by Europeans in the late 15th century.

4.
Portuguese language printing and typesetting class, 1930

Norway
–
The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also lays claim to a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land, until 1814, the kingdom included the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. It also included Isle of Man until 1266, Shetland and Orkney u

1.
The helmet found at Gjermundbu near Haugsbygd, Buskerud, is the only Viking Age helmet that has been found.

2.
Flag

3.
The Gokstad ship at the Viking Ship Museum in Oslo, Norway

4.
The Battle of the Sound between an allied Dano-Norwegian– Dutch fleet and the Swedish navy, 8 November 1658 (29 October O.S.)

Portugal
–
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. It is the westernmost country of mainland Europe, to the west and south it is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and to the east and north by Spain. The Portugal–Spain border is 1,214 kilometres long and considered the longest uninterrupted borde

1.
Citânia de Briteiros, in the Minho Province, is the best preserved Iron Age and Castro culture site in Portugal.

2.
Flag

3.
The Roman Temple of Évora, in the Alentejo, is a symbol of Lusitania, Roman rule in Portugal.

4.
Monument in Porto to Vimara Peres, first ruler of the County of Portugal

South Africa
–
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa, is the southernmost country in Africa. South Africa is the 25th-largest country in the world by land area and it is the southernmost country on the mainland of the Old World or the Eastern Hemisphere. About 80 percent of South Africans are of Sub-Saharan African ancestry, divided among a variet

1.
Mapungubwe Hill, the site of the former capital of the Kingdom of Mapungubwe

2.
Flag

3.
Arrival of Jan van Riebeeck, the first European to settle in South Africa, with Devil's Peak in the background

4.
Depiction of a Zulu attack on a Boer camp in February 1838

Sweden
–
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square ki

1.
A Vendel-era helmet, at the Swedish Museum of National Antiquities.

2.
Flag

3.
A romantic nationalist interpretation of Valdemar IV taking control over Gotland. The final battle outside the walls of Visby in 1361 ended with a massacre of 1,800 defenders of the city.

4.
Stockholm in mid-17th century

Switzerland
–
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a federal republic in Europe. It consists of 26 cantons, and the city of Bern is the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in western-Central Europe, and is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switz

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Founded in 44 BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, Augusta Raurica was the first Roman settlement on the Rhine and is now among the most important archaeological sites in Switzerland.

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The 1291 Bundesbrief (Federal charter)

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The Old Swiss Confederacy from 1291 (dark green) to the sixteenth century (light green) and its associates (blue). In the other colors are shown the subject territories.

Austria
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Austria, officially the Republic of Austria, is a federal republic and a landlocked country of over 8.7 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Hungary and Slovakia to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, the territory of Austria covers 83,879 km2. The terrain is mountainous, lying with

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First appearance of the word "ostarrichi", circled in red. Modern Austria honours this document, dated 996, as the founding of the nation.

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Venus of Willendorf, 28,000 to 25,000 BC. Museum of Natural History Vienna

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"Heidentor" – Remains of the Roman military city of Carnuntum

France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territ

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One of the Lascaux paintings: a horse – Dordogne, approximately 18,000 BC

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The Maison Carrée was a temple of the Gallo-Roman city of Nemausus (present-day Nîmes) and is one of the best preserved vestiges of the Roman Empire.

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With Clovis ' conversion to Catholicism in 498, the Frankish monarchy, elective and secular until then, became hereditary and of divine right.

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Memorial commemorating the first use of the Red Cross symbol in an armed conflict during the Battle of Dybbøl (Denmark) in 1864; jointly erected in 1989 by the national Red Cross societies of Denmark and Germany.

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Yinxu, ruins of an ancient palace dating from the Shang Dynasty (14th century BCE)

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Some of the thousands of life-size Terracotta Warriors of the Qin Dynasty, c. 210 BCE

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The Great Wall of China was built by several dynasties over two thousand years to protect the sedentary agricultural regions of the Chinese interior from incursions by nomadic pastoralists of the northern steppes.